Legal cynicism: Independent construct or downstream manifestation of antisocial constructs? New evidence.

Autor: Ameri T; Iowa State University, United States., Burgason KA; Iowa State University, United States., DeLisi M; Iowa State University, United States. Electronic address: delisi@iastate.edu., Heirigs MH; Iowa State University, United States., Hochstetler A; Iowa State University, United States., Vaughn MG; Saint Louis University, United States.
Jazyk: Spanish; Castilian
Zdroj: International journal of law and psychiatry [Int J Law Psychiatry] 2019 May - Jun; Vol. 64, pp. 211-218. Date of Electronic Publication: 2019 May 10.
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2019.04.008
Abstrakt: Researchers have found that legal cynicism is a significant predictor of crime. Although legal cynicism developed as a form of anomie, it is also plausible that legal cynicism is itself a deviant rationalization to justify one's criminal behavior. As such, legal cynicism might be a derivative manifestation of other individual-level constructs that bear on criminal propensity. We test this possibility by controlling for temperament traits related to antisocial behavior and psychopathic personality features in a sample of residentially incarcerated youth (N = 253). Results from negative binomial models revealed that legal cynicism was significantly associated with self-reported delinquency (including violence), but not total arrests. The significant associations with general delinquency and violence held even when controlling for sociodemographic characteristics. However, the associations were rendered either non-significant or greatly attenuated when we included temperament and psychopathy measures in the models. Overall, findings are convergent with the notion that legal cynicism is a consequence or product of antisocial traits and criminal propensity.
(Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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